Within a communication network, link protocols are used to ensure that data transferred from a first device is the same data that is received by a second device. The transfer of data takes place in the data link layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (“OSI”) model. Link aggregation at the data link layer of a computer network infrastructure describes a method of using multiple network ports in parallel at a link in order to increase speed in which data is delivered over the link. These multiple network ports create a network trunk that establishes a high-speed backbone network that transfers much more data than any single port within the trunk can deliver. Thus, the use of the trunk allows several networking devices to simultaneously communicate with a centralized server at the full speed of a single network port. Furthermore, the network trunk does not allow any single networking device to monopolize the capacity of the trunk or otherwise interfere with the ability for another network device to communicate with the centralized server over the trunk. In addition to using multiple network ports, link aggregation also allows for multiple network interface cards (“NICs”) to be used in parallel within a network trunk.
Due to the number of network devices connected through the trunk and the amount of data that may be transferred over the trunk connection, a system outage or failure at the trunk level may lead to drastic consequences that translate to network downtime, and ultimately losses in productivity and revenue. Unfortunately, every type of network architecture is subject to these potential losses due to system outages and failures. Furthermore, the network architecture may be subject to a condition known as a silent failure, wherein the failure remains undetected by standard fault detection methods. While network management components may be put into place to monitor, interpret, and control the operations of the network, these components are unable to identify or interpret a silent failure condition within the network architecture.